


Desires Like Fireflies

by Umekopyon



Series: Hope's First Elementary School [1]
Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Elementary School, Alternate Universe - Teachers, Kuzuhina Week 2019, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-14
Updated: 2019-07-18
Packaged: 2020-06-27 23:54:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19800409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Umekopyon/pseuds/Umekopyon
Summary: After a year of tedious deskwork at the Board of Education, Hajime Hinata is excited to finally be assigned as a homeroom teacher at Hope's First Elementary School.  But between the new environment and difficult students who don't help matters, hiscute?new colleague is somewhat of a saving grace.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Kuzuhina Week, Day 1: Fluff Day!
> 
> This is an AU that, to be honest, was pretty inevitable, seeing as I'm now teaching elementary school in Japan... Thus, here we are. This also got quite long, since it was supposed to be a one-shot, but now I've had to split it into three chapters instead, oops...
> 
> Also it's not terribly fluffy (yet?)!! So far it's mostly a lot of establishing setting.
> 
> Other miscellaneous notes: relative ages are completely screwed up in this AU. I chose about ten Danganronpa characters to be school faculty, but any other DR characters will appear as literal children. Don't think too hard about it!
> 
> And the title comes from a BUMP OF CHICKEN song because of course it does. (The song this time is "Firefly.")
> 
> I think that's about it! Hope you enjoy!!

"Sorry you bring you in at such an inconvenient time," the vice principal said as she led Hinata from the entrance hall, her silvery hair flowing behind her as they wove between students. "Everyone's trying to regain their bearings after Golden Week, so it's a bit hectic."

"Oh, no, it's fine," Hinata assured her, stumbling half a step when a small child brushed past his hip. "Honestly, I'm thrilled! I much prefer this over my desk job at the BOE."

Kyoko Kirigiri shot him a small smile over her shoulder, then stopped in front of a door labeled "principal's office." "In any case, you should greet the principal first. He should be in here—"

"HEY! No running in the halls!"

Kirigiri's hand paused mere millimeters away from knocking on the door, and she sighed, turning towards the direction the voice had echoed from. "...Or not. He must be this way, then."

She started walking again and Hinata followed her around a corner, towards a rather intense-looking man standing at the base of the stairwell and attempting to shout orders at the throng of children. 

"Principal," Kirigiri said as they approached, her voice clear and authoritative over the din. "Have you taken a look at the fax about next year's curriculum that I left on your desk?"

Upon noticing his vice-principal, the hard lines of the man's sizeable brow abruptly weakened. "Ah... Kirigiri-sensei, I... haven't quite gotten to that yet..."

"And I couldn't help but notice that the shrubs lining the parking lot _still_ haven't been trimmed."

At that, the man visibly deflated, looking a bit like a scolded puppy. "I... but the children..."

"Will be fine." As if to illustrate her point, Kirigiri placed a gloved hand upon the shoulder of a student sprinting past them, startling the child into looking up and then slowing to a more respectable pace. "You don't have time to be patrolling the hallways, Principal. You need to tend to the upkeep of the school. Leave the disciplining to me."

"Very well..." The man let his gaze slip away from Kirigiri as he finally noticed Hinata past her shoulder, his crimson eyes brightening. "Oh! You must be the one from the Board of Education!"

"Ah, yes!" Hinata bowed as best as he could while surrounded by children. "My name is Hajime Hinata, it's nice to meet you!"

The man laughed heartily, then waded past the students to clap Hinata on the shoulder. "Yes, yes, likewise! My name is Kiyotaka Ishimaru, and I'm the principal here. Welcome to Hope's First Elementary!"

"Thanks," Hinata said, grinning nervously.

"Have you met the rest of the faculty yet? Or your students?"

"Not— uh, no. No to both," Hinata stammered, still not quite used to the idea that he was going to have _students_. He was going to be _in charge of a class_.

The position had come up quite abruptly—from what he understood, the previous fourth grade teacher had been four months pregnant when her husband was very suddenly assigned to an overseas job transfer. Rather than staying in the country by herself to finish up the term, it had been decided that it would be better for her health to accompany her husband immediately.

Hinata hadn't hesitated to accept the job when he was offered, but it had happened so suddenly that he still found it hard to believe he was finally going to actually _teach_.

"I'm about to bring him to the staff room now to introduce himself," Kirigiri followed up. "Would you like to come with us, Principal?"

Ishimaru seemed to be considering simply staying in the hallway to continue his attempts at bringing order, but a sharp look from Kirigiri changed his mind. "Y—yes, I'll come with you, then! Let's make haste, we do want to get him settled in before homeroom is over..."

Hinata hung back just enough to let the two of them take the lead before following them back down the hallway, where he was escorted through a sliding door into a large room with rows of desks covered with haphazard stacks of papers. Even if it weren't for the adults shuffling through lesson plans at their desks, it was clear at a glance that this was the staff room.

"Well, this isn't quite everyone," Kirigiri muttered as she looked over the room, "but it's close enough. Now, let's—"

"ATTENTION EVERYONE!"

At Ishimaru's holler, all the teachers stopped what they were doing and looked up in alarm, save Kirigiri, whose expression was rather one of exasperation.

"...Thank you, Principal," she sighed, before addressing the room as a whole. "I'm sorry to interrupt when you're so busy, but the new fourth grade teacher has arrived. Please give him a moment of your time so he can introduce himself." And with a nod, she handed the floor to Hinata.

Right. This, at least, he knew he could do. "Hello, it's nice to meet you all," he said, bowing to the room. "My name is Hajime Hinata. I earned my elementary school teaching license a little over a year ago, but I've been working as an administrative assistant at the Board of Education until now, so I'm very happy to be here at Hope's First Elementary School as your new fourth grade teacher. Please offer me your guidance as we work together this year."

The room was filled with polite applause, and after awkwardly nodding his thanks, the other teachers resumed their work.

"They'll have to introduce themselves on their own time," Kirigiri commented, smiling apologetically, "and Kuzuryu-sensei should be by soon to introduce you to your class. In the meantime, your desk is the one on the corner there, next to Amami-sensei—the man with the wavy hair, he teaches fifth grade. Do you think you can handle things on your own from here?"

"Ah— yes, I'll be fine!" Hinata assured her, though only half convinced himself. "I'm sure you're busy with your own work, so please don't worry about me."

Kirigiri smiled gratefully, then turned back to Ishimaru. "And _you_ , Principal, need to go tend to those shrubs, _please_..."

Hinata chuckled to himself as he maneuvered around old swivel chairs to his own desk. He sat down, a loud creak from the rusted chair joints welcoming him to his new home away from home.

He had just started peeking into the desk drawers, finding them mostly cleared out save for a few dirty pens, half-used pads of sticky notes, and a pallet of broken crayons, when a small voice from behind him drew his attention.

"Um, excuse me…"

He turned around in his squeaky chair to see a woman with long, dark hair sitting at the neighboring row of desks, who flinched as soon as he faced her.

"I— I'm sorry, am I bothering you?"

"Huh? No, no, not at all!" He waved his hands in front of himself placatingly. "If anything, I was worried about bothering _you_ , or else I would have introduced myself directly."

The woman giggled—a bit nervously, but she seemed pleased. "Oh, no, I'm the school nurse, so I don't have a homeroom class to prepare for. I— ah, I'm sorry!" Her face flooded with panic again. "I forgot to give you my name! I'm Mikan Tsumiki, it's a pleasure to meet you, Hinata-sensei!"

"I, um, likewise," Hinata returned, nodding respectfully in her direction—he wasn't sure what would be the best way to get her to ease up, but going along with her introduction seemed to be the best option in the short term. "So, uh… actually, could I ask for your help with something?"

Tsumiki's eyes widened. "Ah— yes! I mean, if it's something that I can help with, though I'm not really much use for anything more than first aid, so—"

"No, no, it's fine," Hinata assured her, lowering his voice to a whisper. "I just don't really want to bother the other homeroom teachers when they're busy, but I'd like to at least know their names if I can. I know Amami-sensei next to me teaches fifth grade, but would you mind pointing the others out to me?"

Tsumiki's mouth formed into an 'o' shape. "Oh— yes! Yes, I can do that!" Her eyes seemed to shine at the prospect of being given a task she was confident in. "On the other side of Amami-sensei is Nidai-sensei," she pointed towards a large, bulky man in a tracksuit, "and he teaches sixth grade. I think you'll mostly be working with Kuzuryu-sensei, who's not in the room right now, but he teaches—"

"Good morning!" came a voice accompanying the clatter of the staff room door opening, and they both reflexively turned to see a small boy with tanned skin at the entrance. "I'm Yuta Asahina, grade 3, and I'm looking for Tsumiki-sensei!"

"Ah, yes!" Completely forgetting the conversation, Tsumiki jumped up and approached him in a flustered rush. "What's wrong? Are you hurt?"

"I was running outside and I fell," Yuta said matter-of-factly, offering a view of his scraped-up hands, palm-up. "But it doesn't hurt."

"Ahh, oh dear!" Tsumiki fretted, taking his wrists in her hands to have a better look. "This is— ahh, your knees are bleeding, too! Come on, let's get you cleaned up in the infirmary… Ah, Hinata-sensei!"

Hinata's head shot up, not expecting to be addressed by her again so soon. "Yes?"

"I— I'm sorry I couldn't— ah, feel free to help yourself to some coffee over here until Kuzuryu-sensei arrives! I'm so sorry!" And with those final words, she disappeared into the hall with the third-grader.

Hinata chuckled lowly as he stood up. "Don't apologize for doing your job," he muttered, making his way to the coffee pot to take her up on the offer.

With nothing else to do as he waited for the elusive "Kuzuryu-sensei" to appear, Hinata poured himself a cup of coffee and made himself comfortable next to the door. Not even two sips into his drink, however, a small figure stepped briskly through the doorway, nodding just minutely as he crossed the threshold.

"Whoa, hold on!" Hinata shot out his unoccupied hand and placed it against the boy's chest, effectively stopping him in his tracks. "You're supposed to announce your name and class when you enter! Aren't you old enough to know that by now?"

The boy glared up at him, golden eyes like angry, searing brands. "The fuck did you just say to me?!"

Hinata's survival instincts were screaming at him to back off, but his role of a teacher overrode that; he couldn't let a student immediately intimidate him, and he certainly couldn't let a student get away with _cursing_ at him, so—

His thoughts ground to a halt as he fully took in the boy's appearance. He was small and round-faced, his blond hair cropped in a youthful buzz cut, that much was true. But upon glancing down, Hinata could see that the boy was wearing battered tennis shoes, not the regulation student slippers, and he now noticed that underneath his hand, trapped against the boy's chest, was the plastic of a faculty nametag.

Swallowing nervously, Hinata pulled his hand away to let the nametag hang freely from its lanyard.

 _Third-Grade Homeroom Teacher_ — _Fuyuhiko Kuzuryu_

Well _shit_.

As Hinata mentally scrambled to find a way to remedy the situation, a hand clapped onto his shoulder from behind. "Hey, don't sweat it, seriously," said the laid-back looking man Hinata recognized as Amami. "We've all made that mistake once or twice."

"It's just instinct, you know?" piped up a red-headed woman, one of the teachers that Tsumiki hadn't named—but judging from the simple reading level of the lesson materials she was sorting, Hinata guessed she taught first grade. "You can't help but want to scold someone of that size."

"Whaddya mean, 'that size'? Shit." Kuzuryu ducked past Hinata and Amami and sidled over to the desk directly in front of Hinata's, covered in neat piles of drill books and paperwork. Immediately finding what he was looking for, he grabbed a file and returned to the doorway, glaring up at Hinata. "You're the new fourth grade teacher, right?" When Hinata nodded his assent, Kuzuryu grunted and stepped back out into the hallway. "C'mon, I've got your kids."

Fumbling to set down his cup of coffee next to the sink, Hinata hurriedly followed after the third grade teacher, heading towards the stairwell. "You've 'got my kids'... the way you say that makes you almost sound like some kind of mob boss demanding ransom," he joked, trying to lighten the mood after his earlier slip-up.

Kuzuryu snorted an aborted laugh. "Shit, any mob boss with half a brain would be paying _you_ to take them back."

Hinata's face fell, trepidation pooling in the pit of his stomach. "Is my class that bad?"

The shorter man paused, his feet stilling at the top of the landing as he considered his answer. "Just... count your lucky stars you're not the one stuck with Kokichi Oma," he finally settled on.

That wasn't a name that meant anything to Hinata, but he could only assume that it would in time, so he said nothing and let Kuzuryu lead him out of the stairwell and into the second-floor hallway.

"The first- and second-grade classes are that way," Kuzuryu said, pointing down the hall to the left, "as well as the home ec classroom and teaching resource room. I'll show you around the rest of the school later, but for now our classes are this way…" He jerked his head to the right, motioning for Hinata to follow him to the end of the hall, past a room labeled "3-1" to classroom "4-1."

Kuzuryu raised his hand to slide the door open, before pausing to glance up at Hinata. "Do you need time to prepare yourself, or do you wanna do this like pulling off a band-aid?"

Hinata had to admit that it was a bit intimidating to know that his (badly behaved?) class of fourth-graders was clamoring to meet him on the other side of the door, but he took a deep breath and tried to look as confident as possible. "Band-aid, please."

The grin that Kuzuryu responded with was dazzling enough to momentarily throw off Hinata's resolve. "You know, I think I'm gonna like you." Without another word, he threw the door open with enough force that Hinata thought it might fall of its track and all but stormed into the room. "All right, brats, I brought your new homeroom teacher, so shut up and look sharp!"

The students didn't _quite_ "shut up," but Kuzuryu's entrance had at least commanded enough authority to quiet their chattering to a whispered buzz, and Hinata felt twelve pairs of eyes following him with interest as he walked into the room.

Kuzuryu swept past the lectern to the teacher's desk in the corner, leaning back upon it for a moment before raising an eyebrow at Hinata.

"Ah, right!" Flustered, Hinata walked to the lectern and located a small box of chalk, taking a piece out before turning to write his name on the board—first in kanji, then in hiragana. He finished up and brushed the dust off his hands, satisfied, before turning to the class with a smile. "Hello, everyone! My name is Hajime Hinata, and I'm your new homeroom teacher. It's nice to meet you all!"

The students chorused a rather uncoordinated "nice to meet you too," save for one girl who instead jumped onto her chair and shouted out, "Don't you have your own class, Kuzuryu-sensei?!"

"Sure do," Kuzuryu countered easily, "and if you don't shut up and let Hinata-sensei finish they'll come barging in for me in just a few minutes. So sit down and be quiet, Ibuki."

The girl complied, her long hair fanning out as she plopped herself back into her seat, and Hinata turned his attention back to how he should continue his introduction. He doubted that a bunch of nine-year-olds would be terribly interested in the office work he had done at the BOE, so he decided to keep it simple. "While it's a shame that your previous teacher had to leave, I'm very excited to be able to teach you all and get to know you better. Let's all have fun and get along this year," he finished up, smiling. "And if you have any questions for me, I—"

Apparently those were the magic words to open up the floodgates.

"Hinata-sensei, what's your favorite color?"

"Are you married?"

"What's your favorite food?"

"What's your favorite color?"

"Do you have kids?"

"What's your favorite color?"

"How old are you?"

"Where do you live?"

"What's your favorite color?!"

"Hey!" Kuzuryu shouted, slamming a hand against the blackboard, but it did little to quell the questioning. "One at a time! Raise your hands!"

Head reeling from the noise, Hinata did his best to sort himself out. "Uhh, well, I'm single, no kids, my favorite food is kusamochi..."

"Don't _answer them_ when they're being brats!"

"Hinata-sensei! Favorite color!!"

"Uh, gold," he said automatically, then paused as the students quieted into a more subdued _ooh, gold!_ He honestly... wasn't sure why that had been his answer; he wasn't typically asked for his favorite color in the adult world, but normally he supposed it would be green. He was just sort of in a gold mood just then, probably.

Well, gold was good, too.

The bell then rang to signal the end of the homeroom period, and with the class taking that as their cue to start chatting amongst each other again, Kuzuryu pushed off of the desk and walked back to Hinata. "Be prepared to get tons of golden glitter bombs for the rest of the year," he muttered. "Well-meaning glitter bombs, but still. Your fault for not choosing a color that's not in their box of crayons."

"Oh," Hinata said dumbly. Maybe gold wasn't so good after all.

Before he could think of anything more eloquent to say in response, a rattling of the door drew their attention, and Kuzuryu's eyes instantly narrowed.

The door slowly slid open to reveal a rather mischievous smile waiting on the other side. "Oh, Kuzuryu-sensei," sing-songed a small boy with dark hair that curled up at the ends. "Aren'tcha gonna come back for first period? We _really_ miss you, and Gonta's crying!"

"Gonta is not!" argued another boy in the hallway, with long, matted hair and glasses covering eyes that were notably devoid of tears.

Kuzuryu sighed. "Didn't I tell you brats to stay in the room and behave?"

The first boy pulled an absolutely angelic look. "What sort of person would I be if I ignored poor Gonta's tears? And besides, it was Komaru's idea."

"What! Nuh-uh!" Hianta just barely made out the faint voice before it was followed up by approaching footfalls, and a girl with her hair cut in a bob appeared in the doorway as well. "Sensei, he's lying! I stayed in the room like you told us until just now! Oh, hi, Oniichan!"

Kuzuryu massaged his temples as a brown-haired boy in Hinata's class waved at the girl. "Forget it, I have a pretty good idea of what's going on. Kokichi, Komaru, go back to the classroom—you too, Touko, don't think I don't see you there. And Gonta, where are your slippers?"

The bespectacled boy looked down at his bare feet as if he had never realized that his bottom half even existed. "...Dunno," he said finally, blinking owlishly.

"Then go back to the classroom and find them." He strode to the doorway and shooed the children away, but before leaving himself, he turned back to Hinata. "Hey, have you made up your own lesson plans for this class?"

Hinata blinked, taken aback by the sudden question. "Uh... well, as best as I could, yeah. I'll have to play a lot of it by ear at first, but…"

Kuzuryu nodded in understanding, then pushed the file he had been holding into Hinata's arms. "Take this, then."

Hinata fumbled with the file, but managed to open it up and saw lesson outlines for the fourth-grade curriculum, with neatly printed notes jotted on the margins detailing changes and suggestions.

It took a moment for Hinata to realize the deeper implications of what he was looking at. "Wait a minute, don't tell me you actually spent your holidays making this—"

"Hell no. Well, not really," Kuzuryu countered, waving a hand dismissively. "Those are just my lesson plans from this time last year when I had fourth grade. I made a few notes taking into account this class' personalities and progress, but that's it, really. Not a big deal. Figured it just might help you supplement your own plans."

Hinata felt a sort of warmth bubbling up behind his breastbone, and he couldn't fight the grin that crept onto his face. "Kuzuryu-sensei… seriously, thanks. This'll be a huge help."

Kuzuryu gave another dismissive wave, though his cheeks seemed to have a bit of a pinkish hue to them. "Don't make this into a bigger deal than it is, that's just weird. Anyway, I'm going back to my own class now. Your tour of the place will have to wait until after school, just ask the kids for directions if you need anything before then."

With one final wave, Kuzuryu was out the door, sliding the door shut behind him. A new source of encouragement in hand, Hinata turned back to his class.

"Now, let's get started, everyone."


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What day of Kuzuhina Week am I posting this chapter for? idk. AU Day was two days ago, maybe that? It doesn't really matter!
> 
> Hope you enjoy this chapter! It's sort of become like little vignettes, a bit of a departure from the more cohesive first chapter, so I hope that's not too jarring!

Hope's First Elementary School wasn't  _ exactly _ located in the boonies, but it was far enough from the city center that the last two kilometers of Hinata's commute had brought him along narrow roads squeezed between rice paddies, before abruptly depositing him onto the congested intersection where the school sat. As could be expected, the school was small—there were about seventy-five students in total, and only one class per grade. Whereas larger schools would shuffle class rosters every two years, Hope's First would instead keep the same classes out of necessity while the students went on to a different homeroom teacher.

"Which means that us teachers really only need to focus on knowing the curriculum for two grades instead of being jacks-of-all-trades," Kuzuryu explained later that day, as they returned to campus from leading the students home. "So you and me, we can just focus on mastering third and fourth grade and teach it  _ really fucking well _ to our kids for the two years we have 'em."

"Yeah, Kirigiri-sensei had sort of given me a basic explanation of that," Hinata said, tapping the bright yellow traffic safety flag against the sidewalk thoughtfully. "So then Amami-sensei and Nidai-sensei will only ever teach fifth and sixth grade, and the other two..."

"Koizumi and Harukawa teach first and second," Kuzuryu finished up as they entered the entrance hall and he toed off his outside shoes. "Feel free to drop the 'sensei' stuff when the kids aren't around, by the way. Unless the principal is listening in; he's kind of a hardass about proper titles and shit."

"Right... Kuzuryu."

The third-grade teacher's expression was almost amused as he shoved his shoes in his locker, but he didn't comment on it. Instead, he said, "Ready for that tour I promised you?"

"Oh, that would help," Hinata laughed, slipping on his own indoor shoes. "Though I kind of feel like I've seen about half the school already..."

"You probably have," Kuzuryu admitted. He pointed down the first-floor hallway. "Past the kids' shoe lockers are the principal's office and the staff room, which you've obviously already seen. Then there's the infirmary and the cafeteria—I'm guessing the kids showed you where that is, seeing as you actually showed up for lunch."

"Haha, yeah," Hinata said. "And I've been to the second floor, so it's pretty much just the third floor left, right?"

Kuzuryu showed Hinata around the rest of the school, and indeed, there wasn't too much left to see. They stopped at the learning resource room on the second floor for Kuzuryu to give a quick rundown of where to find flashcards, CDs, and videos, before heading to the third floor where Hinata was shown the fifth- and sixth-grade classrooms, the library, music room, and two general-use clubrooms.

The only other building on campus was the gymnasium, and that hadn't needed more than a cursory look around, at which point they put their outdoor shoes back on for Kuzuryu to show him around the outside facilities.

"This is the playground out front, obviously," Kuzuryu said, gesturing at the large dirt field in front of the school before leading Hinata around to the back of the school. "And we have our rabbit hutch here by the parking lot."

Hinata took a quick look into the hutch, where three rabbits were huddled, munching on lettuce, before noticing that Kuzuryu was quickly headed further towards the back of the gymnasium, and he hurried to catch up.

Kuzuryu's destination seemed to be a grove of trees, and just as Hinata thought he could hear the soft sounds of flowing water, he noticed a structure about two meters tall covered in tight webbing. "What's this?" he asked.

"That's our firefly habitat," Kuzuryu answered, looking a bit proud.

"Fireflies? You raise fireflies here, too? That's rare..." Intrigued, Hinata peeked through the netting, but all he could see was a collection of trees and shrubs, as well as a small man-made creek flowing alongside a rocky path.

"You wouldn't be able to see anything now even if it  _ were _ dark out," Kuzuryu laughed. "They haven't reached their adult stage yet. They should get there within a month, though, when we have our firefly viewing festival. Until then, the sixth graders are taking care of the habitat—and Gonta in my class, too. The kid loves bugs, so he was given special permission to help."

"A firefly viewing festival..." Now that he thought about it, he did vaguely remember an interoffice memo going around the previous year announcing Hope's First's annual firefly festival, but he hadn't been able to make time for it. He smiled wistfully. "I don't think I've actually seen fireflies since my summer vacations at my grandparents' house at a kid. It sounds fun, I can't wait."

"It's a huge pain in the ass is what it is," Kuzuryu answered, but the laughter in his voice and eyes softened the words. "It starts on a Friday so we have to work a full school day and  _ then _ stay at school until well after the sun goes down. You'd better damn well be expecting to work a fourteen-hour day, and then there's a  _ second _ day of the festival that Saturday night. And this is only two weeks after busting our asses over the sports festival, too." Apparently, Kuzuryu couldn't keep himself from grinning as well. "But yeah. I guess it's a pretty good time, all things considered."

The two stood there silently for a moment, just long enough for Hinata to begin to wonder  _ why _ they were just standing there. It was a comfortable silence, to be sure, broken only by the soft babble of the creek, but it wasn't like there was anything particularly interesting to be looking at. The longer it went on, though, it the more self-conscious he was becoming about the situation, being alone with this new colleague that he barely knew, so—

"Ah, the pool," Kuzuryu said suddenly.

Hinata blinked. "Sorry, what?"

"The pool. I forgot to show you the pool." Kuzuryu shifted on his feet awkwardly and jerked his head in the direction of the gymnasium. "It's on the other side of the gym. Once you've seen that, though, I think you've basically seen everything."

"Oh, right." Hinata followed Kuzuryu as they stepped away from the structure, his heart pounding in his chest in a way that suddenly made him feel all too relieved that the tour would soon come to an end.

* * *

As for his students, well... Hinata supposed that Kuzuryu's warnings hadn't been unwarranted.

He had some good kids, to be sure. And the good kids were among the first whose names he easily memorized.

But he learned to identify the problem children even quicker.

The first issue arose that very first day, mere minutes after Kuzuryu had left the room, as Hinata decided to use first period to give the students a chance to introduce themselves. Very shortly into the activity, a girl with big, wavy blonde pigtails stood up, a large grin plastered across her face, and she loudly and confidently introduced herself.

"My name is Mukuro Ikusaba!" she announced. "I like to dress up and play with my friends!"

Hinata nodded, smiling, as he checked off the name on his attendance roster. "Thank you, it's nice to meet you, Mukuro," he said as she sat back down, then turned to the girl sitting next to her. "Now you're up."

She was visibly nervous, a mousy girl with short, dark hair and freckles, and as she stood up she kept glancing at Mukuro next to her (who simply grinned and gave a thumbs-up), her expression a bit... confused? "Uh, my name is... Junko Enoshima...?" The inquisitive lilt caught Hinata's attention, and as she continued her self-introduction, he reached for Kuzuryu's file. "I like, um... I like gym and reading..."

Mercifully, Kuzuryu had supplied Hinata with an up-to-date seating chart, which he managed to flip to just as she had finished up, to see it riddled with just as many notes as the rest of the file.

"Sensei!" another girl shouted out, standing up indignantly as "Junko" sat back down. "They're lying! That's—"

"Yes, I see, uh... Aoi," Hinata assured her, quickly finding her name on the chart and encouraging her to sit down before focusing back on the pair of students in question.

According to the chart, those were indeed the desks belonging to two girls known as Mukuro Ikusaba and Junko Enoshima—except the spots were reversed.

Across their places on the chart was a note reading "twins," which was certainly something to keep in mind, but Hinata's eye was instead drawn to an adjacent note, underlined in urgent red pen: "Junko is TROUBLE."

Hinata sucked in a breath, ignored the number of other red underlines peppering the page—they'd wait for later—and snapped the file shut. "So Junko Enoshima," he said, nodding to the one in pigtails, "and Mukuro Ikusaba," to the freckled girl who looked a bit relieved to be immediately outed. "I think I've got it. Next?"

* * *

Hinata had decided that, unless absolutely necessary, he would wait until the end of the school day to check out the rest of the red underlines—he wanted to get to know his students on his own terms first, without the opinions of someone else coloring his perceptions.

After coming home from work that evening, collapsing onto his low couch, and cracking open the file, though, he found that the notes more or less aligned with what he had observed for himself.

Some of them weren't too terribly worrying—"Byakuya Togami: entitled and stuck-up," for example, Hinata was pretty sure he could work with. Probably. The boy had immediately turned up his nose at his new teacher for having failed to prepare a timely birthday present for him, but Hinata hoped he had convinced him that it was wholly illogical to expect him to cross time-space to deliver a present two days before they had even met. Then there were Ibuki Mioda and Miu Iruma who had identical notations reading "TIRING," but when it came down to it, these were elementary school students. Hinata would have to be an idiot to  _ not _ expect them to be tiring, though so far he could see why Kuzuryu would have pointed out those two girls in particular.

There was just one note on the page that Hinata couldn't quite make sense of.

"So... do you just not know this boy that well or something?" Hinata asked Kuzuryu first thing the next morning, pushing the file across their desks and pointing at the large red "??????".

Kuzuryu pulled a face. "No, I know him, but..." He pushed the file back. "I mean, how much have  _ you _ spoken to Nagito Komaeda?"

"Not much," Hinata admitted. "He's pretty quiet in class so far, but he seems friendly enough. He's polite, at the very least."

Kuzuryu nodded sagely. "He's an... interesting kid." He frowned. "I'll leave it to your judgment if that's a good or bad 'interesting.' Truth is, I could probably write a whole  _ book _ about him and it wouldn't be enough, but I'm a teacher, I don't have time for that shit. So the question marks are all you get." He tapped the file, grinning. "Sorry."

"It's fine," Hinata muttered, and really, it was—he  _ had _ wanted to get to know the students on his own terms, after all. Still, it was a little bit irritating that Kuzuryu wouldn't offer anything more than an "interesting" of uncertain implications.

He didn't have the chance to give the matter much more thought, though, as his ears were then assaulted by banging on the windows behind him.

"Haji-sen! Haji-sen! Heyyyy Haji-sen!!"

"I'm assuming that's you?" Kuzuryu quipped, nudging Hinata's foot under their desks, and Hinata sighed, turning to see Ibuki and Miu pounding at the glass for his attention. Tiring, indeed.

He stood up and slid open the side door to address the girls directly. "It's  _ Hi-na-ta-se-n-se-i _ ," he said, clearly enunciating each mora, "and there's a proper way to ask for a teacher's attention. That's not it. Now what do you want?"

"Haji-sen!" Ibuki shouted again, and Hinata sighed; he had spent the better part of the previous afternoon trying to nip that nickname in the bud, but so far it wasn't working. "Come on outside and play with us!"

"We're playing knights and need you to be the horse!" Miu added.

Playing with his students, in itself, wasn't entirely unappealing to Hajime—it would be a great opportunity to connect with them—but he wanted to sort through his lesson plans before the day officially began, and Harukawa had just placed a much-needed mug of hot coffee on his desk, and he was not totally into the idea of being a horse. "Not right now, sorry," he said, smiling kindly. "I'm a little too busy right now. But definitely some other time. Maybe during recess?"

The girls whined, but quickly overcame their disappointment by deciding to track down a sixth-grader for their game instead, and ran off.

With a wry laugh, Hinata closed the door and returned to his seat.

"You're not really going to play with them during recess?" Kuzuryu asked, one eyebrow arched.

"I think it's an important bonding tactic."

Kuzuryu scoffed. "How idealistic of you. You'll only wear yourself out, though. Especially with  _ those _ two."

"So I've heard." Hinata tapped the file again, smirking, before picking up his coffee and taking a sip.

Kuzuryu laughed under his breath. "You can't say I didn't give you plenty of warning, then."

* * *

Over his first week, Hinata found that despite how trying his students could be between lessons, they actually seemed to behave remarkably well during most classes. There was always the possibility that Miu would shout something inappropriate, or that Byakuya would talk down to a classmate for giving a wrong answer, but overall they seemed to have been instilled with a general respect for academics, and Hinata couldn't have been more relieved.

Of course, that meant that the subjects that were generally treated like simple fun and games—such as arts and crafts, music, and English—were still liable to be a struggle. English, in particular, Hinata hadn't expected to be such a problem, given that he had multiple students that were already fluent, but that almost seemed to make the situation even worse.

At least he didn't have to face that class alone.

"That's not a cap!" Kaito yelled out in perfect English, as Sonia held up a flashcard clearly depicting a baseball cap. "That looks like a picture of a  _ butt _ !" He began cackling loudly, prompting most of the rest of the class to follow suit, and Hinata made to walk over to reprimand him.

"Be quiet, you absolute imbecile," Byakuya said from the opposite side of the room, again in perfect English—or that's what Hinata had to assume, at least. He had no idea what "imbecile" was supposed to mean in Japanese. Either way, though, Byakuya's commentary had only added to the noise level in the classroom, and Hinata rubbed at his temples, trying to decide on the most effective way to regain control of the class.

"Be silent!" Sonia's voice rang through the classroom, her commandeering tone cutting through the commotion like a knife, and immediately the children quieted down. Satisfied, she shot Hinata a contented smile.

"Thank you," he breathed, both to her and the students. "Now. Who wants to tell us what's on the picture Sonia-sensei is holding? Yes," he sighed in relief when a hand immediately shot up. "Taeko, if you would."

The girl stood up silently, tossing a curled pigtail over her shoulder as she pushed her chair in. Standing with her shoulders back, she confidently said in a calm, clear voice, "Une casquette."

It took every fiber of Hinata's being to keep from slapping his forehead.

* * *

Hinata felt a little bad for immediately assuming that it was the shenanigans of one of his students when, at lunch halfway through his second week, he took his eyes off his tray for just long enough for a second box of milk to appear there.

He narrowed his eyes, looking along the seats at his table, trying to figure out which student was trying to pawn off their milk, when Sayaka, seated across from him, gave a little gasp.

"Oh! It looks like Kuzuryu-sensei is targeting you, now."

"Targeting me?" Hinata asked, feeling his heart jumping into his throat. What was  _ targeting _ supposed to mean?

"Ahh, his milk!" Aoi shouted, standing up and pointing at the second milk with a grin. "Nidai-sensei kept getting it all last year, but now I guess it's your turn, huh!"

Hinata picked up the extra milk and inspected it, frowning. "I'm not following."

Makoto gestured for Hinata to lean down, and when he did so, the boy whispered into his ear as if sharing a secret. "Kuzuryu-sensei hates milk," he said. "He tries to keep it secret, but pretty much everyone knows."

"Because teachers are supposed to teach us not to be picky, you know?" Sayaka followed up. "So he won't admit that there's something  _ he _ won't eat... or drink. But he sneaks his milk onto someone else's tray all the time, then pretends it was there all along. But we figured out what was going on eventually."

"Hey,  _ Shuichi _ was the one who figured it out!" Kaito cut in, clapping his friend across the shoulders. "Right, Shuichi?"

"Ah, um..." The dark-haired boy blushed, clearly uncomfortable with the attention being brought onto him. "Not really, I just happened to notice—"

Their discussion was cut off when a pot of rice slammed onto the table next to Hinata, and they silently looked up to see Kuzuryu standing over them in a mint green Sumikko Gurashi apron, a fake smile plastered across his face.

"Who wants some more rice?" he said, immediately grabbing Hinata's bowl and adding another large scoop. "Let me top you off. And remember that you can't leave  _ anything _ behind."

Hinata couldn't find it in himself to say anything in protest, and simply accepted both the heaping bowl of rice, and his fate as Kuzuryu's new proxy for milk consumption.

* * *

It sort of went without saying that Kuzuryu was the teacher that Hinata interacted with the most. It went beyond simply being in neighboring classrooms or assigned to desks across from each other; any tasks that were assigned to teachers in pairs tended to be neatly divided by grade level. A quick glance at the daily staff bulletin would show that the day's sports festival preparations would yet again have him working alongside Kuzuryu.

Not that it was a problem at all; despite Hinata's major misstep when they had first met, they actually got along remarkably well. The highlight of Hinata's day was chatting with Kuzuryu across their desks after the students had gone home for the day, cracking jokes that they couldn't tell in the presence of children (but never anything to elicit more than a side-eyed glance from Kirigiri).

But every once in a while, just like at the end of the school tour, Hinata felt a little odd around Kuzuryu, as if he couldn't look the other man in the eye. He was far from fearful of the third-grade teacher, but in those moments he wanted nothing more than to run and hide, to put as much distance between them as possible, at least until the feeling subsided.

About a week before the sports festival, when the students were fully entrenched in practicing for the events, one of his tasks was to hold up one end of a long net for the children to chuck balls across, with Kuzuryu holding the other end. It was just business as usual, really, and the activity itself wasn't a problem, save for the rapidly intensifying mid-May sunshine beating down on his face and neck.

Once the activity ended and the children moved on to practice a different event, Hinata moved to meet Kuzuryu in the middle so they could neatly fold the next back up.

Then his fingertips brushed against Kuzuryu's, and the contact startled him enough that he promptly dropped his side of the net, kicking up a small cloud of dust when it plopped onto the ground.

Kuzuryu frowned up at him, visibly perplexed. "The hell? Are you okay?"

"Ah, um... yeah, sorry." Cheeks burning in a way that he tried to convince himself was the fault of the sun, Hinata stooped down and quickly gathered his side of the net again, and pointedly avoided Kuzuryu's gaze as they resumed folding the next.

He wasn't sure if he  _ was _ okay, though. Something was definitely strange; every light brush of skin as they folded the net had Hinata's nerve endings on overdrive, and it got even worse the more aware he became, to the point that it felt like his stomach was trying to jump into his throat. They really couldn't get the damn net folded up soon enough, and the instant they were done, Hinata bowed his head, mumbled something about seeing Tsumiki for heat exhaustion, and left Kuzuryu with the task of putting the net away.

It definitely wasn't professional at all. Far from it. But in the moment, it was all he could think of to keep himself sane.

* * *

Ignoring Kuzuryu's warnings of exhaustion, Hinata did make a point of playing with the children at recess a few times a week. It wasn't every day—he had to prioritize class preparations, of course, and it  _ was _ true that he would end up a bit more tired whenever he played with them—but every once in a while it was nice to let himself revert back to simplistic childhood games.

Of course, he could maybe do without the "presents" of rocks and dirt and trash that he always found stuffed into his pockets, and he made it very clear that he was  _ not _ to be used as a jungle gym, but other than that it was fine. Playing tag, playing house, or gathering bugs was certainly within his realm of comfort. And it was definitely nice to take on the role of playmate for a bit, instead of an authority figure.

Until he found out what "interesting" meant.

Gonta's wails were deafening, pulling Hinata out of his pretend tea party with Makoto and Sayaka, and in an instant he had sprinted over to the tree where the third-grader laid curled up on the dirt, Nagito Komaeda standing over him with quite a content smile across his face.

"What's going on?!" Hinata demanded, looking to Nagito for some sort of explanation as he placed a hand on Gonta's back to try and ease his heaving sobs. "Did you do something?!"

"I did, but it's for Gonta-kun's own good," Nagito answered easily.

"He stepped on Gonta's friends!" Gonta cried out. "He killed them!"

Shocked, Hinata turned his gaze towards Nagito's foot, placed quite purposely on the ground, one end of a stuck protruding from underneath. Hinata caught sight of a few surrounding pill bugs scurrying away from the scene.

Disbelief and anger flooding the edges of his consciousness, Hinata shot up and grabbed the fourth-grader by the shoulder. "What the hell do you think you're doing?!" he shouted, giving the sternest look he could muster. "We  _ do not _ kill living things, Nagito! Explain to me how that's supposed to be for Gonta's own good!"

Nagito tilted his head curiously, as if failing to understand why his teacher would be so upset. "But won't he even be stronger if he can overcome the despair of losing his bug friends here? The hope that he feels afterwards will be even greater! Isn't that a wonderful thing?"

Hinata's mouth flapped uselessly for a moment. What... what  _ was _ this kid?

"Gonta doesn't want a greater hope!" the third-grader cried, pounding his fists on the ground. "Gonta just wants his bug friends safe!"

"Hey! What's going on over here?!"

Hinata glanced away from Nagito, but kept a firm grip on the boy, to see Kuzuryu and Kirigiri running over to the scene. "Nagito stepped on Gonta's bugs," he said simply.

"The hell?!"

"Komaeda-kun." Kirigiri leaned over to address the boy, a steely anger burning in her eyes. "Lift your foot.  _ Now _ ."

Nagito's face was still devoid of remorse as he shrugged and removed his foot from the stick—to reveal three pill bugs, curled into balls, but visibly unharmed.

Amazed, Hinata knelt down to nudge one with a stick, and it uncurled and scuttled away, clearly alive.

"Aww," Nagito said, arching his neck to look at his sneaker soles and picking a fourth bug out of the tread. "I guess I missed all of them. How unlucky."

"Unlucky?!" Hinata exclaimed, taken aback.

Wiping the angry tears from his face, Gonta lunged forward to grab the remaining pill bugs and then looked up at his homeroom teacher. "Can Gonta keep them?" he muttered around the snot running over his lips. "Wanna keep them safe."

Kuzuryu sighed and knelt down next to him. "Yeah, sure. Let's take you in to find a terrarium for them, then we'll get you cleaned up, okay?"

"'Kay…"

"And where are your shoes?"

"Dunno..."

Hinata watched in astonishment as Kuzuryu actually  _ picked up _ his student—an impressive feat, given that Gonta was rather big for a third grader, nearly as tall as Kuzuryu himself. But seeing the way that Kuzuryu took to ensuring the comfort and safety of his student so easily, he couldn't help but think that he was really an amazing teacher.

He didn't know why it had taken so long to notice.

"Hinata-sensei," Kirigiri said, pulling Hinata from his admiring trance, "I'm going to be taking Komaeda-kun to see the principal. As his homeroom teacher, could I ask you to come along?"

"Ah— yes." Hinata focused back on the task at hand. He was a teacher, too, and he had a job to do. "Yes, of course. Let's go, then."

* * *

It was a long day, and at the end of it all Hinata just sat in his car for a while, slumped across his steering wheel, lacking the motivation to actually drive himself home just yet.

He was barely three weeks into the job, and already he had had to deal with a student actually trying to  _ kill _ in earnest. The target had only been some bugs, which weren't typically considered too important, sure, but they had been the target precisely  _ because _ they  _ had _ been important to another student.

Hinata wasn't sure he had the confidence to keep his kids in line if that's what they were going to be like.

Out of the corner of his eye, Hinata saw Kuzuryu pulling his bicycle from the bike rack. Hinata had known from their conversations that Kuzuryu biked to and from school, but somehow this had been the first time they'd crossed paths in the parking lot.

Sighing, Hinata rolled down his window and called out to him. "Hey, Kuzuryu."

Kuzuryu looked over, then finished securing his helmet and walked his bike over to Hinata's car. "Hey. Good work today."

Hinata laughed wryly. "Yeah... I'm sorry about Nagito," he said with a grimace.

"Not your fault." Kuzuryu shrugged, shuffling through his bag. "I think you handled the situation pretty much as best as could be expected. And that's about the worst you'll ever see Nagito at, so don't sweat it."

Hinata sighed again; that was a bit of a relief, at least. "I feel like you could have maybe given me more warning than a line of question marks, though."

"Listen, I can't hold your hand through  _ everything _ ."

Normally, Hinata would have shot back with some sort of quick retort, but somehow that particular phrasing made the breath catch in his throat, so he just averted his gaze, laughing hollowly.

"Anyway, just forget about it for now. Get home and get some rest, you'll feel better after a good sleep."

Hinata smiled and looked back at Kuzuryu, but was startled into silence at his colleagues appearance. After a moment, he managed to force his lips to form the words, "Kuzuryu, you wear  _ glasses _ ?"

The third-grade teacher shrugged, pushing the thick-rimmed glasses up his freckled nose self-consciously. "Just, y'know, when I'm biking and stuff. Can't see the road signs well enough otherwise. And if I worse them at school I just know  _ someone _ would break them."

Hinata laughed; he knew Kuzuryu's class well enough at this point to realize which student he was referring to in particular. "Well, you look good in them."

Silence fell between them for a beat, until Hinata realized what he had said and his face heated up.

He tried to think of some way to recover. "I mean— you look good without them too."

That was  _ not _ a recovery.

Kuzuryu, for his part, just laughed awkwardly. "Dumbass, stop being weird. You should really get home and get some rest. Okay?"

Dumbly, Hinata nodded, and waved Kuzuryu off as he pedaled out of the parking lot to head home.

Hinata still couldn't find the motivation to start driving yet, though, and he slumped over his steering wheel again, mortification coloring his face all the way down his neck.

Apparently now he had one more problem to deal with.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not going to pretend to know when to expect the next (last) chapter, haha. Summer break starts tomorrow, so probably sometime in August! See you then!

**Author's Note:**

> Next chapter will be either tomorrow (Angst Day - totally ignoring the theme haha) or Wednesday (AU Day)!


End file.
